Norwegian artist Caroline Eriksson just finished an epic sculpture of the xenomorph queen from Alien, made of gingerbread. The sculpture is built over an iron structure, held together with sugar syrup. The gingerbread is baked and then bent over curved surfaces while still warm to achieve the proper shape for each piece. The finished product is quite edible, but if not eaten, it will retain its shape for months — via Neatorama

The combination of a good book and a slice of cake are arguably the height of decadence, as this amazing Library Cake by Kathy Knaus clearly illustrates. Featuring both the exterior entrance to the library and the book-filled interior, the cake functions as a surprisingly accurate diorama of a beautiful library — via Make:

The Guerrilla Grafters are a group of San Franciscans who believe urban trees are a precious thing to waste on simple flowers. Their goal is to graft — albeit illegally — fruit bearing branches onto non-fruit bearing fruit trees, in hopes that over time the cities ornamental trees can provide food for residents free of charge — via Youtube

A new technique for a new effect in their image candies. These Crystal Roses are formed from nothing but hot sugar, and flavours. This is the first in a series of candies using this kind of design — via Youtube

Public displays of Confection use a very old ribbon candy machine to finally make some nice ribbon candy just before Christmas 2016. This batch was cherry, but they’ve made tutti frutti, and peppermint too. Lofty Pursuits makes candy on equipment made from the late 1800’s until the modern day. They concentrate on finding and restoring old candy equipment and re-learning the dying art of hard candy making — via Youtube

The kind of Chinese noodles exists for more than 300 years, but only 300 people know the process for how to make it. The character who still keep making this kind of noodles for 30 years, that become the master of Nanshan noodles — via Youtube

Mitsuo Nakatani is a mochi master, and to watch him do his work is a genuine thrill. Turning sticky rice into Japan’s traditional soft and chewy treat requires pounding, flipping and smashing the glutinous rice at high speeds in perfect coordination with a team. While visitors come to Nakatani’s mochi shop to taste the best, they stay to watch him make it — via Youtube

Edible Geography readers have perhaps heard of pollinator pathways, an initiative to thread together isolated pockets of green space into nectar-filled corridors, in order to give butterflies and bees easier passage across otherwise unfriendly urban expanses of concrete and asphalt. A recent article in British Airways’ High Life magazine about efforts to save Kenya’s last remaining elephants introduced me to an interesting twist on the concept of bee-based landscape design: honey fences.

Although the main threat to the elephants’ survival is ivory-market driven poaching, a significant number are also killed each year following altercations with local villagers. As Angela Carr-Hartley, director of the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust, politely put it, These communities have mixed feelings about an elephant coming into their smallholdings overnight, as they can wreak havoc eating the crops.

Zoologist Lucy King came up with the honey fence solution, which takes advantage of the fact that elephants are terrified by the sound of bees. (The delicate skin inside their trunks is apparently particularly vulnerable to being stung.) King had read that elephants tend to avoid acacia trees, usually a favourite food, if bees have built a hive in the branches. Based on that initial insight, and after several years of behavioral experiments, including playing elephants the sound of disturbed bees from a hidden loudspeaker and filming their reaction, King developed the honey fence system: a series of hives, suspended at ten-metre intervals from a single wire threaded around wooden fence posts. If an elephant touches either a hive or the wire, all the bees along the fence line feel the disturbance and swarm out of their hives in an angry, buzzing cloud — via redwolf.newsvine.com

The Japanese toy line Konapun includes scale model kitchens that people can use to make food. In the past, the food has been fake. But the company also manufactures a stove so realistic that you can cook a proper, albeit very small, meal on it.

In this video, YouTube member AAAjoken prepares scrambled eggs, sausage, and coffee using Konapun utensils and a stove. He serves them on two plates and cups on a tiny kotatsu — via Youtube

It goes without saying that I’ve tried these cookies myself, which was both reckless and prudent because I learned that I needed to include a warning with the boxes I’ve been sending to people. While eating them, one sometimes hears ancient voices speaking in alien tongues and notices cats, birds and/or trees casting multiple shadows. However these are merely signs of a strictly temporary lunacy that does eventually pass. All essential rites were observed and incantations uttered by me throughout the preparation process. And what’s a little madness and abject terror if it means I’m able to put a smile (however demented) on the face of a friend? Cthulhu fhtagn — Imgur

This is a cake I was commissioned to do by one of my Uni friends. We did both our Zoology degrees together: I was on the terrestrial side of it, where she was marine biology focused. So I shouldn’t have been surprised when she asked me for a marine-themed cake — via deviantART

The team at Information is Beautiful have visualised the scientific evidence — or lack thereof — behind what they dub Snake Oil Superfoods, breaking down hard data in an infinitely clickable format. Each of the coloured bubbles on the page corresponds to a specific food, but also a specific claim; so, some edibles make multiple appearances on way opposite ends of the spectrum — via Gizmodo

Designer Eugeni Quitllet was hired by Air France to redesign the airline’s in-flight cutlery and tableware. And as part of the new line, he went above and beyond the call of duty with a set of cutlery designed just for kids that transforms into a small airline of their own — via Gizmodo Australia

The odorless and tasteless nature of date rape drugs can make them impossible for victims to detect before it’s too late. But soon your drinking glass may able to warn you if dangerous chemicals have been slipped into your cocktail. Next month, DrinkSavvy will begin shipping plastic cups and straws that change colour if a drink contains GHB, Rohypnol or Ketamine, three drugs commonly used for spiking purposes. The effort began with a successful $50,000 Indiegogo campaign led by company founder Michael Abramson — who himself was once unknowingly “roofied” during a night out with friend — via redwolf.newsvine.com

Hankerie came out of this idea — watermelon swiss roll. I will name it as cakemelon. This creative idea inspired from the Australia Melon that I’ve seen in supermarket here. Most of the Australia watermelon melon are more pinkish, but surprisingly they’re sweeter than what we have in Malaysia — red flesh watermelon — via Hankerie

Japan has suspended some imports of wheat from the United States after genetically engineered wheat was found on an Oregon farm.

The Agriculture Department announced the discovery on Wednesday. No genetically engineered wheat has been approved for American farming.

Japan is one of the largest export markets for American wheat growers. Katsuhiro Saka, a counsellor at the Japanese Embassy in Washington, said Thursday that Japan had cancelled orders of western white wheat from the Pacific Northwest and also of some feed-grade wheat.

In most countries the unapproved genetically modified wheat would be a target of concern, Mr Saka said. The Japanese people have similar kinds of concerns.

In addition, the European Union said it would test incoming American shipments and block any containing genetically modified wheat — via redwolf.newsvine.com

Credulous geeks have poured over $130,000 into a fantastic food replacement named Soylent, a substance whose creators aim to free your body from the need to eat solids ever again.

The ludicrously ambitious and suspiciously under-skilled Soylent Corporation announced its crowdfunding campaign on Tuesday and within hours had apparently taken in over a hundred thousand dollars worth of pre-orders for its magical default meal gunge.

Soylent’s inventor Rob Rhinehart claims in a promotional video for the nutrient goo that he’s been living off of Soylent for the past three months and has never been healthier.

The company hopes that its green beige slop will help spark a food revolution that will see people eat non-gloopy food for pleasure rather than need — via redwolf.newsvine.com

In the mid-1800s, there were thousands of unique varieties of apples in the United States, some of the most astounding diversity ever developed in a food crop. Then industrial agriculture crushed that world. The apple industry settled on a handful of varieties to promote worldwide, and the rest were forgotten. They became commercially extinct — but not quite biologically extinct.

Even when abandoned, an apple tree can live more than 200 years, and, like the Giving Tree in Shel Silverstein’s book, it will wait patiently for the boy to return. There is a bent old Black Oxford tree in Hallowell, Maine, that is approximately two centuries old and still gives a crop of midnight-purple apples each fall. In places like northern New England, the Appalachian Mountains, and Johnny Appleseed’s beloved Ohio River Valley — agricultural byways that have escaped the bulldozer — these centenarians hang on, flickering on the edge of existence, their identity often a mystery to the present home owners. And John Bunker is determined to save as many as he can before they, and he, are gone — via redwolf.newsvine.com

People take silverware, cups and plates, and that adds up over the course of a year to a lot of money, he said. With Nutella, it added up much more quickly. Where Dining might have to spend $50,000 to replace silverware and cups, they were spending thousands of dollars on Nutella in one week.

Ms Dunn told me it was close to $5,000 in that first week, he said. As for the amount of Nutella that Columbia students were consuming, or at least loading up on and walking away with, he said, I was told it was more than 100 pounds per day.

How much more? That was all I got, he said.

Before hanging up on a reporter who called on Wednesday, Ms Dunn said: I’m not allowed to comment on anything. You have to go through university communications.

A spokeswoman declined to comment on the Nutella situation at Columbia. She said that numbers quoted in The Columbia Daily Spectator — and repeated by Mr Bailinson in a telephone interview on Wednesday — were speculative and inaccurate and that the cost figures were roughly 10 times greater than the actual figures.

Nutella is widely available on school campuses, though precise figures could not be obtained. It was also unclear whether Nutella hoarding had become a financial concern on other campuses — via redwolf.newsvine.com

If you’re planning on baking some holiday cookies, you might want to get a head start a little earlier. Refrigerating the dough ahead of time not only makes it easier to bake whenever you get a chance to, it also improves the cookies.

Many cookie recipes suggest you refrigerate for a short time before baking, but Kathleen Purvis’ research for The Telegraph has found that refrigerating for more than a day can give the dough more time for the flavours to develop:

The difference starts with the liquid in the egg, which hydrates the starch in flour. Giving the flour more time to absorb that liquid makes the dough firmer, but it also lets enzymes in the flour and the egg yolk break down carbohydrates into the simple sugars fructose and glucose. Separately, they taste sweeter and they caramelize faster when baked.

A worker at a Bumble Bee Foods factory in Santa Fe Springs, California, died in industrial oven accident this week, NBC News reported.

Safety officials said Jose Melena, 62, was accidentally cooked in a steamer machine at the seafood canning company’s plant, NBC News reported. Police pronounced him dead at the scene at 7.00am Thursday.

California Division of Occupational Safety and Health spokeswoman Erika Monterroza said it was unclear how Melena ended up inside the oven, the Contra Costa Times reported. Cal-OSHA has launched an investigation into the accident which it plans to complete in six months, she added.

If it turns out that the factory did violate state health and safety regulations, Bumble Bee Foods will face civil penalties, Monterroza said, according to the Contra Costa Times. In addition, the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s office could decide to indict the company on criminal charges — via redwolf.newsvine.com